COLLEGE WORLD SERIES / Friendship links Stanford, Texas

Bruce Adams, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Monday, June 17, 2002

2002-06-17 04:00:00 PDT Omaha, Neb. -- When the two longtime friends get together tonight at Rosenblatt Stadium, they probably won't have time to tell baseball stories and reminisce about the old days when they were teammates on the Humboldt Crabs.

That's because Stanford coach Mark Marquess and Texas coach Augie Garrido will have more immediate concerns. Their teams meet in the College World Series -- a critical game with one team staying in the winner's bracket and getting a two-day break while the other falls into the loser's bracket and plays an elimination game Tuesday.

Marquess smiles at the mention of Garrido. "Augie and I go back 30 years," he said.

Garrido, a Vallejo native who began his collegiate coaching career in 1969 at San Francisco State, is a bit more expansive.

"Mark and I went back to where he was 18 years old and the first baseman and quarterback at Stanford and I was coming out of professional baseball, and we played on the same semi-professional baseball team," Garrido said. "Watching him grow up in the Stanford uniform and then becoming the coach and watching him progress to the highest level of coaching. . . . I'm very proud to know him."

The two are also longtime coaching opponents. Their teams began playing each other during Garrido's 21 years at Cal State Fullerton and continued to schedule nonconference series against each other when Garrido went to Texas in 1997. They're both fixtures in Omaha. Marquess has won two national titles and Garrido's Fullerton teams have three.

In their last meeting in late March at Sunken Diamond, Stanford won two out of three. The two teams played six times last year, with Stanford winning four,

including a two-game sweep on the last day of the Cardinal-hosted NCAA Regional.

Both coaches clearly relish the games, with two nationally prominent baseball programs testing each other. And both say their teams are better for the games against each other.

"It's a great situation for our team," said Marquess, who says his team this year ended the Texas series with a new understanding of the need to adjust to good pitching.

The Longhorns learned as well.

"That was one of the defining moments for our players," Garrido said. "Stanford at the time was the No. 1 in the country and is one of the best teams in the country. Our players saw it was time to get down to the fundamentals of the game."

Marquess says both teams are very similar this year -- each relying on pitching and defense and neither truly explosive on offense.

Garrido says that makes for an intriguing matchup.

"I think the difference is probably going to be the unexpected," he said. "Our players like to compete and their players like to compete. And both teams and both coaching staffs have worked on what we expect. But you can never really get a rope around baseball."

Stanford opened CWS play with a 4-3 win over Notre Dame Saturday and Texas with a 2-1 win over Rice, setting up tonight's game in this rivalry fueled by affection and respect.

"Its just enjoyable to play in an environment that is highly competitive without being filled with revenge or hate," Garrido said. "I don't think rivalries have to include a lack of sportsmanship."